Days of the Marauders
by masha-ch
Summary: This is a little story about: four naughty magicians, strong friendship, Irish songs, warm autumn days, Butterbeer taste, shining green eyes and the castle, covered with snow, where the tale of the Marauders was born. Roxanne Malfoy belongs to Viria. Thanks you for her, dear! You're my favorite muse! *
1. The Birth of the Marauders

_All the rights belongs to JK Rowling. Everything else is just a result of my uncontrollable imagination! _

_This is a translation of my Russian fanfiction and I want to thank Maria Cherevko and her Beta for their help! It wouldn't have come without your work dear! =**_

**The Birth of the Marauders**

**_December 10, 1959_**

The dark-haired woman, frail and small like a child, buried herself in the pillows and looked up at the heavy canopy with wild eyes, sodden from the pain. Damp tar-colored hair spread over the sheets, sticking to the perspiring body. The bed she was lying on floated in the dark room like a big ship, and every now and then the pain pushed at her in harsh waves.

"We should change the sheets..."

"It's too late."

Walburga turned her head and saw Druella Black leaving her shadowy corner near the window and heading toward the bed, sending Walburga a look of warning.

"I don't want to..." the woman whispered furiously. "I. Am._ In pain._" Her lips twisted into a snarl, baring her teeth.

"I know," Druella said, stroking her hair tenderly. Walburga shook her head. "But it has to be done, otherwise the child will die."

Walburga shook her head again, and suddenly the pain pierced her anew, so strong that it almost seemed to pierce her brain. She arched involuntarily, clutching her stomach, and Lucretia, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, got ready to deliver the baby. But the woman in labour, once the contraction passed and she recovered her breath, lied back on pillows, soaked with sweat. The two women looked at each other anxiously, with Druella's thin lips pressed together in a line, and a crease forming between Lucretia's eyebrows.

Walburga understood that she was alone in the fight for her life and turned to the wall. Regardless of her will, her body trembled with fear from time to time; her heart was pounding so hard that it was difficult to breathe.

They didn't care about her.

Nobody did.

They only needed the one inside of her.

No one gave a toss about the pain.

And she had to give up everything to him. To them.

It would be wrong to say that Walburga Black wanted this child. There was barely a shred of love between her and her husband when they lay down in bed. At any rate, on her part there was nothing left now but disgust before each long and humiliating session, after which she was unable to look upon any man without a feeling of loathing.

And then came this wonderful present – pregnancy, something that everyone in the house wanted. Except for her. Morning sickness, swelling, weight gain, restriction from attending all celebrations, current labour pains - all for the glory of the noble and most ancient house of Black.

The spasms returned and the woman grabbed at her oversized abdomen, wishing for Little Orion to just come forth from her body in any way possible, so that she would not have to keep waiting for the inevitable waves of frightening pain to finally cease and allow her to sleep calmly.

"Bourgie, we can't wait any more!" Lucretia said firmly, not allowing Walburga to bring her legs together. "You must do it, otherwise we have to get him on our own, and then -"

Her last words were suddenly drowned out by a loud shriek, terrifying the women.

"Bourgie!"

"Lucretia, take care of the child!" Druella shouted, tightly embracing her cousin who had just jumped up on the bed. Her arms were so strong that it seemed like they would be able to keep hold a bear. And Walburga, who was tossing about and attempting to break the hold on her, really reminded one of a beast.

Red from the effort and all disheveled from struggling, she hunched over her big stomach.

"Everything's fine, everything's fine," Lucretia was saying loudly, looking at sheets intently. "You're doing well; everything's ok!"

"Dru, do something!" Walburga desperately growled at last, falling back down to the bed, exhausted. Her face grew numb from dread, to the point where she could barely talk; her arms became cold as ice and trembled as if she were having an attack of the nerves. "Stop this! I can't do it!"

"Darling, it will end soon, it will e-"

"STOP!" Walburga suddenly yelled, so loud that both midwives jumped up and rushed to her. Lucretia's arms were covered with slippery blood.

"Lu, go back to your place!" Druella demanded, patting Walburga's back. "Kreacher!"

"The baby is big!" Lucretia wiped her forehead with the clean part of an arm.

A clap rang out.

The house elf was shaking almost as hard as his mistress.

"Bring Blood Replacement potion!" Druella commanded.

The thought of,_ 'What?'_ blazed up in Walburga's paralyzed brain.

"And more towels! Quickly now, you worthless monkey, quickly!"

A crack resounded. It seemed Druella had hurried the servant up with a spell.

Walburga arched again, letting loose another howl. She fell down on the pillows once again, breathing oxygen in greedily. It seemed her body didn't belong to her anymore. Her face, usually so well-groomed, clean and smooth, was covered with sweat, had become pinched and looked older. Her big, narrow mouth looked crooked, and salty tears were falling from red, swollen eyes.

One would think that youthful tenderness and beauty were leaving her body along with the baby.

"So, how is she?" Orion Black asked busily, arriving from down the dark hall.

Walburga's father Pollux Black, her brother Alphard, and Orion's brother-in-law Ignatius Prewett, were standing next to a cold fireplace, listening to screams emanating from behind the door.

The storm had ended by the time night fell, and an early, vicious frost enveloped Grimmauld Place so that it was as cold in the living floors of the house as in the cellar, but still no one moved to light a fire.

In the Blacks' house, warmth was considered a bad sign while the mistress was in labour.

There was a legend that in warmth and comfort, only girls were born.

"She's braving it out…" Pollux answered, smiling awkwardly. The old man's wrinkled face was illuminated by shy happiness, but he was afraid to show his pleasure in front of Orion. Once more, a painful cry came from behind the door.

"I think everything will be fine."

Lifting a wide palm to press it to his mouth, Orion paced in the dimly lit room, stopping occasionally to stand and gradually shift his weight from one foot to another. Ebony floor boards squeaked beneath his feet.

He had a narrow face with small, smooth lines. His mouth was lost in a goatee that formed from short, wiry whiskers. His black, impenetrable eyes flickered under thick, severe eyebrows, looking like a pair of uneasy beetle bugs. Tall, broad-shouldered, strong — he was handsome, but with that classical southern handsomeness, which had an effect only among pale and oblong people and was absolutely lost in the homeland.

Looking at him, you would unintentionally think of the noise of the Greek surf; the taste of olives and wine; the glare of the sun, playing on the curly hair of dusky-skinned girls in snow-white togas; and the tendrils of reaching grapevines...

A roar full of torment shook the house again. It seemed that behind the bedroom door there was not the normal version of Bourgie, who put one in mind of a porcelain doll with her tiny hands, legs, and thin waist, but really a huge wounded tiger from which someone was extracting entrails.

Everyone except Orion involuntarily shared nervous glances; he didn't react at all, just kept looking exactingly at the ancient tapestry covering the wall, representing his family tree. He saw how a new golden thread was curling from his and his cousin's names.

Not so long ago, Cygnus, senior among the Black brothers, and Druella Rosier had borne three healthy daughters in a row. This had become something of a joke, mostly among the male half of the family, who every now and then laughed at Cygnus' was no chance for him to make it up in his family's eyes, either. After their third, the most difficult parturition, the family doctor strictly forbade Druella to have any more children. Like the majority of Black women, she was rather weak physically, and the three attempts to have a long-awaited male successor had seriously diminished her already frail health.

Orion looked at the new, shine-in-the-dark names.

Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa.

The strongest, most reliable branch of the family tree bore three senseless but beautiful fruits, which would someday be placed in someone else's hands with all the benefits. In autumn, Cygnus had to sign contracts with several pure-blooded French families, including the Malfoys and Lestranges. They could keep his family from continuing along the path to eventual ruin. Last year, these families took part in a notable French revolution, during which some magical settlements were completely cleared of muggles. In the opinion of upperclass society, it was an act of salvation, "a cleansing of the pores in the magical population" as Abraxas Malfoy had said during the Christmas holidays. No matter how profitable Cygnus' daughters' engagements would be, they still threatened the Black family with a total structural breakdown and dilution by French blood. To maintain his position, traditions and wealth, Orion Black needed a successor.

Immediately.

"Everything's fine, Bourgie, everything's fine..." Lucretia repeated loudly, squeezing the girl's knees with shaking blood-stained hands. Walburga greedily gasped for air, trying to gain strength before unleashing a new effort. "Just a little more, Bourgie, a little more!"

The woman in labour breathed deeply, as if she was going to make a deep dive, and her whole body hoicked; she grasped Druella's hand so strongly it seemed like she wanted to break her fingers.

"C'mon, sweetheart, c'mon!" Lucretia begged, standing up and looking under the sheet with huge eyes. Her chest was rising quickly now. "C'mon!" She yelled, trying to shout over Bourgie's pained wail.

Walburga croaked constrainedly before crying out strangely and suddenly falling back onto the pillows. The room was filled with an indignant shrill cry.

"Kreacher!" Lucretia shouted with ringing voice. "Kreacher! Where are you, you piece of rubbish?!" She laughed when she saw Druella stroking Bourgie's lambent wet face, and then started crying as well.

"That's it, it's all good now, everything's behind you. You did a good job! You did great, Bourgie!"

Walburga didn't react at her cousin's words, being all eyes at how Lucretia, supporting the head carefully, lifted up a tiny, raw-meat-colored body covered in blood and slime. The baby was screeching discontentedly, flailing its shrunken arms and legs; its eyes were closed tight, and a lock of tarry hair was glued to its damp head.

"What did I have?" She asked, barely coming round. "What is it, Lucretia?"

The door burst open, and all the men turned their head at once, seeing Druella's face, each one of them full of dread.

Orion's hand dropped from his face and he turned to her.

Everything froze.

"A son..." the woman exhaled, looking at him with huge blue eyes.

Pollux gasped loudly, gripping his nightcap in his hand. Ignatius touched his shoulder.

On Ignatius' usually grim and aloof face was now an expression of boisterous triumph. Alphard began to smile and reddened strangely, as if the word 'son' meant something indecent. And Orion, hearing an odd, inexplicable ringing in his ears, darted to the door to see how an effulgent Lucretia handed his wife their little white parcel; at that very moment he could see an incredibly little, dawn-colored foot. Little human feet.

He wondered, _'Can people be so small?'_

Walburga raised her head and met her husband's gaze. A wisp of a smile, equal parts complacent and soft, slid off her face at once. Her countenance became aloof and cold. For the first time on Orion's swarthy face, a particular expression appeared, one she had never seen before. She understood that from now on, his future was in her hands. From now on, everything was in her hands.


	2. Chapter 2

**_January 30, 1960_**

"Who can I wish a happy first birthday?"

The second Jane Evans saw her husband, she blossomed and and quietly bounced the small bundle in her arms. Warm hazel eyes began to shine, and the wide, soft mouth was touched by a warm smile. She looked much better than when John had stolen a look at her in the ward early this morning. The only reminders of her labour were the bags under her eyes and a slight pallor, shaded by a shock of auburn hair.

"Johnny..."

Mr. Evans, a tall, handsome man with shoulders as wide as an oarsman's, big hands and feet, and wavy ginger locks, snuck into the ward and took a huge bouquet out from behind his back. Thin, slightly sweet perfume diffused through the dry, sterile air of the hospital.

"Lilies!" Jane exclaimed, giving her husband a tender, but at the same time reproachful, look. "I have too many flowers already! The doctor-"

"There's no such thing as 'too many flowers,'" the man muttered, finding a place for the new bouquet among the whole regiment of daisies, roses, chrysanthemums and violets already present. Were it not for the bed and cold, snow-white walls of a hospital ward, it would be possible to think that Jane really sat in one big flower, just like Thumbelina.

"I am so proud of you; you were so brave." He sat down on the edge of the bed and finally kissed her for the first time in two days. "You're going to be the best mom in the world. And I'm such a coward. I was so afraid for you..." John looked at the swaddling blankets in his wife's arms and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Can I...?"

Jane smiled, and, lifting one slim arm, turned down an edge of the thin pink blanket to reveal the round, rosy face of a newborn. The girl's head was adorned with fine, downy hair, a small button nose, and a pair of eyes of that were unusual in that they weren't shut tight in unseeing cracks, but were instead wide open, watching a large unknown man with a sort of rapt curiosity, almost severe in their intensity.

The smile disappeared from the man's face, replaced by apprehension. Jane even became nervous for a second, seeing the change in the infant's face, but the moment she touched husband's shoulder, he shivered and shifted his clouded gaze back to her.

"Take her...," she whispered, holding out the baby carefully. John extended his arms to cradle the girl gently.

"She looks just like you," he mumbled absently. The glasses slipped down to the very tip of his nose, but it didn't even cross his mind to take a hand off the precious bundle and set them straight. "This is a real miracle... Jane, this is a miracle, isn't it? There's me, there's you... and now there's her. She started off as a part of both of us and now she's separate, existing on her own ... isn't it magic?"

"Yes," the woman replied, stroking the blanket softly. The little girl frowned, peeking out grimly from between her parents. Suddenly, she closed her eyes and yawned, opening small toothless mouth up widely. "Magic."

"Beautiful...," John said, walking aimlessly with her around the ward. Jane tensed slightly, but stayed calm, keeping a watchful eye on her husband's movements; her demeanor was reminiscent of a cat looking after her kitten which had vanished into the high grass.

John stopped. Bright rays of sunshine, unusually warm for winter, poured through the window into the ward. Confident in his future prior to this moment, the man suddenly realized how fragile and ethereal his little family's world was. Somehow, the birth of his first daughter hadn't already produced this effect; he had been too happy, too overwhelmed, and too absorbed with his new responsibilities.

But now, a huge, shattering wave of love suddenly filled his big, strong heart up to the brim. There was his wife sitting in the bed. That slim, small woman, who wasn't even able to open the pickle jar standing on the top shelf of the pantry, gave birth to a child, almost completely without doctors' help just a few days ago. Frightful to think, what torments she had been through.

At home little Tuni was waiting for him. She'd caught a cold and wasn't feeling well. She was worried too, dimly understanding that something extremely important was happening while she was being left out of the loop at home; moreover, she hadn't been able to see her Mum for days.

He looked at the small, defenseless individual nestled in his arms.

Now she was theirs to take home and raise. She would start off small and defenseless, catch colds, go to school every morning, grow up, some rascal would fall in love with her, and she, just like Jane, would try and fail to open stubborn pickle jars... and then one day she would leave them to live out her own life.

The girl looked at him like she perfectly understood what was going on in his soul.

In his own green eyes, which had somehow been duplicated on this tiny pink face, the whole world was mirrored.

A future world unknown to him. Her own small world.

Making a circle within the sun's golden light and the heady aroma of the flowers, John came back to wife's bed to sit on the edge.

"Jane," he whispered.

"What?" She asked, whispering as well.

"I love you."

"I love you too," she said quietly.

They kissed softly, sweetly.

The baby began to squirm, excited about the motes of pollen flying through the air that starched both her hands.

"Should I give it to her?" John offered, reaching up and tearing off a petal from the nearest bouquet. It happened to be a lily petal.

"No, don't," Jane said severely, covering the girl with the blanket. "There's pollen." She leaned down and tenderly kissed the tiny nose. Her daughter made a wry face and arched within the swaddling cloths. "I'm afraid that she might develop an allergy to pollen or start sneezing. I think you should take all these wonderful flowers away, John, even though I'll miss them... Did you take Tuni to the doctor?"

"Yes, she's alright now - asks about you all the time." Moving the bouquet further away, John came back by the bed and knelt on the floor, bearing against the sheets on his elbows.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I wouldn't have come if I knew that I could infect you, don't worry. And I'll bring all the flowers home today. Tuni will be glad; she likes flowers too," he told her with a smile, tickling down one tiny arm with his finger. Once it reached her hand, the girl grabbed it gleefully. "Did you hear, Lily?" Jane blinked and cocked her head, looking blankly ahead of her. "You have a big sister!"

"What did you say?" she asked, smiling slowly at something.

"What did I say?" John looked at his wife confusedly, his mouth opened a bit. "Oh, sorry, it was unintentional; it just came to me. I saw the bouquet and somehow..."

"Shh, shh," she pressed a finger to his lips. _"Lily..."_

John nuzzled his forehead against his wife's knee, covered with a blanket, and began to smile.

"Lily..."

Jane tenderly stroked her daughter's cheek with a finger; it was soft, like a peach.

_"Lily. The Fairy."_


	3. Chapter 3

**_March 10, 1960_**

"Mr..." It was hard to remember all his patients' names, but the corpulent healer from St. Mungo's Hospital managed to do so with great difficulty.

"Mr. Lupin, can I talk to you?"

A slim young man, with hair the color of ripe wheat gathered into a ponytail, looked around and jumped up the second he saw who was calling him. Giving a quick sympathetic touch to the shoulder of the large, hairy wizard beside him, he ran up to the physician, slipping on the shiny floor in his haste.

The healer squeezed his wand nervously and hovered awkwardly, listening to the wood squeak miserably. He hated these moments, when he had to look in the families' eyes and tell them something like this.

The beaming young man run up to him, grabbing his shoulders.

"How is Reya, how's the baby, is everything okay? She was so worried this morning. I know, everyone is, but Reya was driving me nuts - I... can I come in already?" he asked, dancing around the healer's large figure, dragging the the wizard along with him.

"Mr. Lupin..."

"Just call me Marcus! What did we have? Reya kept on saying we would have a boy, but I have no clue why she thought so, I mean I think it's a girl, but-"

"Mr. Lupin!" The healer could no longer bear this head-spinning back-and-forth and took Lupin's shoulders sharply. "Your girlfriend died."

So, he said the words, had broken the bad news.

Perhaps he should not have been quite so abrupt.

"What?" His hopeful, dazed smile hardly had time to leave his lips when the light died in his light-brown eyes. Catching the devastated look in them, the healer immediately tore away his gaze and squeezed his wand again reflexively.

"Mr. Lupin... we tried to help her..."

Marcus stepped away from him, reeling towards the stark, cold wall.

"... It was unsuccessful... if we had a little more time and mo- I mean, we... we had to make a cut..."

Marcus seized his hair in his hands, tugging at it, and bent forward. Tears were unable to break through the pain attempting to crush him; the only sound he could make to show his inner anguish was a quiet, strained exhale of air. He pulled at his collar, and the floor felt unstable under his feet.

The healer touched Marcus' shoulder, but he twitched away violently, as if contact with the pale, plump fingers burned; he collapsed to the floor, arms covering his head and neck as he rocked back and forth.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Lupin," the physician was saying, still unsure of how to make Lupin clearly understand that St. Mungo's was not at fault. "You should have gone to a muggle clinic... sometimes magic just isn't enough. Your... wife... was too young and too weak... she wasn't ready... the bleeding began, we tried to stop it... few hours... you have to understand... sometimes magic is not..." His rambling words floated through the air, with only bits and pieces being absorbed by the distraught Lupin.

Not knowing how else to get the poor seventeen-year-old's attention, the healer tried sitting down heavily on his haunches next to him, but the robe constricted his enormous stomach painfully so he stood up again; his feet began to hurt immediately.

"She's dead, dead..." Marcus was repeating unthinkingly. "She left me. She's gone. Gone..." At those words the dam of grief, which had up until this point been stemmed, burst open, letting tears of pain and helpless anger gush at full blast down his face and onto the clean floor.

"But my girl, I can't... what will I..."

"Eventually, Mr. Lupin, you'll have to..." he trailed off with a shrug, before clenching his soft pink fists. "Pull yourself together for the sake of your son. R... Reya would want it."

Marcus raised his swollen eyes up to the healer. Tears continued to attack them, his nose was still red and running, his hollow grey cheeks were covered with wet tracks. Suddenly he remembered something - something that should have already crossed his mind...

The healer mistakenly interpreted his movement and, with a serious look on his face, placed his hand solidly on Marcus' shoulder.

"Yes, Mr. Lupin, you have a son, a healthy baby bo-"

Suddenly Marcus leapt to his feet, making the healer step back in uneasy confusion.

"Where is she?"

"What?"

The young man pushed the physician away and jerkily began to open all the doors in the corridor.

The healer followed after him worriedly.

"What are you... Mr. Lupin..." He tried to stop him, but his feeble attempts were in vain - the man seemed to be a hundred times stronger than normal, and he firmly shooed away the healer's hands. "Please, stop this and calm down!"

"I want to see Reya," Marcus answered in a wooden voice, opening a different door. Some woman squealed hysterically, but he immediately closed it and reached for the next knob along the row of doors.

"Mr. Lupin, you aren't allowed to visit her!"

"I told you that I want to see her; you don't understand. You're not going to stop me. I can't - I have to - I must see her!" Marcus shouted, the pitch of his voice creeping higher and higher.

Two tall figures belonging to medical assistants were running up to him with their wands out.

Marcus flung open the next door and very nearly closed it, thinking that he was again mistaken, before stopping in his tracks as he saw the woman he was looking for.

Reya, his small blond Reya, was lying on a high table, frail and colorless. Her oblong face was set in a serious, somewhat offended expression - her lips were pursed, and her chin was tucked in towards her chest. Long curls fell onto her shoulders and the table, and little hands were lying on her now flat stomach... The hospital shirt was all red there.

"Reya..." Marcus breathed. At that moment, two pairs of hands, strong and thick as the branches of an oak tree, grabbed him around the middle, making him double over as he tried to stand

his ground.

"No!" his voice cracked; Marcus grasped the doorway with all his strength, breaking his nails on the wood. "No! Reya, Reya, Merlin, no, let me go, let go, do you hear me? Get your hands off me! I won't leave her; let me go!"

Suddenly, a young woman, a healer in light yellow robes snuck out of the ward. From what she couldn't help but overhear going on in the corridor, she guessed that the disconsolate father was going to burst into the ward at any moment, so she decided to carry the newborn away from here, for its own safety.

When she saw the young man's drawn face, with him trying to twist his hands away from statue-like assistants' grips, she squeaked and pressed herself into the wall, holding the little cocoon of white blankets tightly. The baby began to cry, scared by the loud shouts.

Marcus, already forced to stand still physically, now froze inside, listening with all his heart to the new, unknown-up-until-now sound.

_'Remus, Marcus, I want to name him Remus. It's like Reya and Marcus. And it would sound really sweet, don't you think?'_

The tiny human was wailing loudly, screwing up his wrinkled face, and Marcus couldn't take his eyes off him.

_'Mark... Mark, do you like it?'_

_'Honey, I don't want children to tease him and call him Rebus. We can think of another name, the second we see him.'_

"I like it..." he whispered now, looking at the small part of Reya and himself with acute fascination. But their bundle was in this woman's arms. That was wrong. He had the primitive urge to seize the baby, to take him by force from the healer and run away with him to the end of the world, to someplace everyone would stay of their lives. "I like it... Reya..."


	4. Chapter 4

**_March 27, 1920_**

"Charlus, for Merlin's sake, stop fussing about. The calculations were perfect," a solidly built gentleman said, watching carefully as a lean, dusky youth swept by him yet again. "You have no reason to worry!"

"And if we don't get it on time?" Charlus Potter paced all the way back to the corridor, his fingers raking through his fleecy head of dark hair. "What if Doriana doesn't make it on time? What if something happens and everything goes wrong?!" He looked at his watch, probably for the hundredth time, before stepping back and snapping up his head to compare its hands with those of the hospital clocks. They were perfectly synchronized, just as they had been five minutes ago. "We'll be stuck here! Or not _here_?.." He wrung his hands nervously, as if he were trying to squeeze his fear out onto the floor. "I'm afraid to even think about how all this is going to end!"

"I'm telling you, Potter, calm down! She won't be late, because she's already done this before and was on time!" The wizard lifted his finger meaningfully. He was speaking with a strong accent, and somehow, it had a calming effect. Charlus stared at him for a few seconds, then gave a wave of his hand and started anxiously pacing back and forth again.

"We only have twenty minutes left!" he cried, rummaging in his pockets and pulling out a cigarette.

"You were allowed to change your destiny and get younger - not to smoke!" The wizard got up, allowing the robe in his lap, embroidered all over with a finely-worked silver pattern, to slide to the floor. He stalked over and drew the cigarette from his companion's lips.

"You yourself are well aware of it - nothing can be changed." They said the phrase in unison. The only difference was, the wizard sporting the mustache said it calmly and edifyingly, while Charlus Potter nodded along with annoyance to every syllable.

"I know, Tamazi." His hand lifted to his hair again. "And this is very strange, considering how much we've changed already... and we still remember nothing."

"Because all this time you were halfway around the world, figuring out how to use the Time Turner," Tamazi laughed.

"And Doriana was teaching at Hogwarts, yeah. Oh, Merlin, I'm so nervous." Charlus clasped his palms together and pressed them to his lips.

"That's okay," the wizard nodded knowingly before smiling. Rays of wrinkles materialized from the corners of his black eyes.

Charlus met this gaze, full of fatherly tenderness, and pursed his lips, breathing in and out heavily.

"We might have surprised you pretty much?" he asked, motioning to the door, from behind which the wails of a woman in labor and a younger, commanding version of Tamazi's voice, at that time the best doctor in his field, could be heard.

Tamazi smiled kindly into his mustache.

"I was warned about you. But anyway it was very... how to say it in English..." He tickled the air comically with his fingers in his mental quest for the correct term.

"Scary?"

"Exciting! Back then, you know firsthand, no one would even think to use a Time Turner for such a purpose," he stated lightheartedly. "What an experiment this was!"

"Why are you telling me all this? You know full well it was our last hope," the man grumbled, tugging at the colorful sweater that hung from his gaunt frame. "In order for this baby to be born, we, of our own free will, went through this entire..." He was put in mind of the endless queues in the Ministry, all the spells, approvals, revocations and again approvals. "_Nightmare_."

"I _do_ know!" Tamazi said waving his hands around, seeming completely unconcerned. "This is something to be proud of, Potter! Bringing a new life into the world is wonderful! But why didn't you think of..."

He fell silent on purpose, his black eyes sparkling mischievously. The father-to-betsked with annoyance, hands on his hips. Tamazi had flatly refused to disclose the baby's gender; simply extricating the fact that Dora would be okay had been difficult enough. "The baby? You wouldn't be able to help... the child forever. Even if you had the strongest Time Turner! How are they going to react when you leave?

The younger man inhaled deeply through his nose.

"Ohhh…" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know, Tamazi. I tried to explain it to Dora a thousand times. She just refused to listen... and it was hard for me to argue with her, I'm not too..." Charlus trailed off before clapping his chest. "Mentally I'm almost sixty, Tamazi. I'm older then you and you already have grandchildren. And I…" he threw up his hands, his shoulders hunching up in a helpless shrug. "I don't even have children yet."

"Oh-oh, fatherhood is coming!" the wizard laughed. "There are only ten minutes left. If I remember correctly…" He peeked at his watch, although not in the way of an anxious future colleague, the master of Time Turners, but instead calmly and prudently. "Yes, that's right!"

Charlus threaded his hand through his hair and held the position as he spoke.

"Tell me, why did you decide to become a Traveler? Was it just because of me and Dora?"

"Well you have to admit, this is much more interesting than healing curing the common cold!"

Charlus chuckled and clapped his friend's shoulder approvingly.

In that moment a child's cries were heard from behind the door, and Charlus Potter jumped up and away as if a huge lion had leapt at him from that direction. Tamazi laughed, watching him. Charlus, at all cost trying to get rid of weird, growing all the time rumble in his years, stared at his colleague wildly.

"There's a baby…" he began to babble. "How is it possible that…" He froze.

"It's not just any baby!" Tamazi said, laughing and showing off strong, tan arms from beneath his shirtsleeves as he brought the man to his feet. Giving him a hearty slap on the back, Tamazi exclaimed, "It's a boy!"

"What?" Charlus asked, caught off balance. His face shone with excitement as understanding dawned on him, and even though he was a sixty-year old in a young man's body, his countenance suddenly brought to mind that of a little boy.

"Your son, Charlus, you have a son!" Tamazi chuckled.

Charlus let out a loud whoop before grabbing the other man and starting to whirl them both around in dizzy, happy circles.

**_March 27, 1960_**

Two elderly people, standing in the center of a sunlit room with their hands joined, watched as a tiny, gold hourglass rose up between them and started to revolve madly, turning into a blurred spot in the air - a little galaxy. The golden chain that encircled them began to shine. The woman looked into the warm, chocolate eyes of her husband; in the next moment, their bodies were surrounded by a gauzy cloud of smoke. Within a couple of seconds, they had dissolved into thin air, leaving the airy, cream-and-floral-decorated living room empty except for the wicker furniture.

A few sun-filled minutes passed. Outside the window of the empty house, birds were singing as loudly as they could. The curtains of the open window were dancing in the breeze, tickling a shiny wooden floor and brushing the back of the wicker chair on which lay a forgotten newspaper. Well-tended pots of daisies sat on the windowsill, gossiping to each other as only flowers can. Somewhere in the depths of the house, a clock ticked.

Suddenly, the front door burst open, letting in the spring sun's rays, and a different version of the same couple entered the house.

Doriana Potter, a beautiful woman in a magnificent, dark blue cloak lined with fur, moved into the house cautiously, carefully holding a big, lacy bundle taped up in a satin ribbon with tiny bells. Each step was accompanied by a soft, melodic peal. She had long dark hair that coalesced into a smooth, flat fabric, framing her narrow face and its strong brows, observant dark eyes and full lips. Despite her age, time, it seemed, had not wanted to spoil the pretty Italian woman's features: her thick, rippling black hair was barely touched by grayness, the original midnight color having merely lightened in some parts; only a few, faint wrinkles were visible on her forehead and around her mouth. Aside from these tokens of age, she was still the same, funny girl who'd been able to make anyone smile, who radiated her love of life in waves, with whom a young time traveler, Charlus Potter, had fallen in love with long ago.

Carrying the infant into the living room, that kingdom of flowers and sunlight, she looked exactly like a dryad of the forest who had just brought her firstborn into the world, her beauty transforming the space into a magical woodland grotto.

Charlus Potter, a slim but solid man with short, luxuriant hair, gone silver at the temples, and a firm, resolute look, entered the room. Although no longer hasty and jittery, his movements were still filled with strength. It seemed like he put a thousand thoughts into every gesture, his motions coming off as steady and deliberate.

Following behind Charlus, Tamazi joined the family in the living room. His silver hair contrasted sharply with the olive-toned skin of a face that was as wrinkled as a baked apple; every last line communicated his current feelings of joy and enthusiasm. It appeared that time had had no power over his spirit, restrained to affecting merely the external.

Taking off his warm cloak, he draped it over the back of an armchair and picked up the fallen newspaper with a view to finish reading the article he'd started a year ago.

Doriana Potter, rocking her son gently, sat down on one of the enormous wicker armchairs overloaded with big, white cushions and looked at the old man with apprehension.

Pouring wine into glasses, Charlus extended his neck to peek over the back of the chair.

"Is he still asleep?"

"He is," Doriana nodded, playing gently with the fine hair on the baby's head. "Isn't he sweet?"

"What are those bells for? They'll wake him up!"

"Your voice will wake him up, Mr. Potter," the woman accused playfully, turning back. "Speak quietly..."

Tamazi folded the newspaper up and gave a resigned sigh, accepting a glass of wine from Charlus.

"It's still so calm here. It's strange not to see Grindewald's name in the papers."

He supported his elbows on the sides of the chair, resting the base of his glass on his large stomach.

"In my opinion, it's better that we're away from all the crazy, complicated stuff," Doriana said cheerfully, drawing up her legs to get more comfortable. She hugged her son tenderly. "I want James to grow up in a happy world."

"It will be," her husband assured her as he sank down onto the couch. "We were gone for five minutes - what could have happened?"

"Eh... and I didn't even notice how Grindewald looked like back them... I was just so happy to have a healthy back again!" Tamazi burst out laughing and winked to pair of "young" parents, at Dori in particular, who was shining with happiness. "I'm proud of you both. You went the right way about everything."

"Tamazi, won't it affect him?" The woman asked worriedly. "He travelled through forty years as a newborn!"

"No," Charlus waved his hand carelessly, holding the glass of wine in the other. "Trust me, Dori, I checked this Time Turner, and not just once, before using it on us."

"Your own opinion doesn't count!" the woman said with false severity. She turned to her husband and looked at him appraisingly. "I got used to the young you, you know. And now I have to get accustomed to this version all over again." Her husband knew that statement applied to the both of them; Charlus had noticed the look his wife had cast the mirror the second she entered the vestibule.

He put his hand on her shoulder and she covered it with her own, squeezing his fingers softly before pressing her cheek to them.

"Everything's ok, Dori," Charlus said quietly.

"Yeah, you have no reason to worry. James will be a normal kid, just like the others."

"No," the woman shook her head and glanced at the baby's face. Every time she looked at her son, her heart swelled with pleasure. She couldn't get used to the idea that she had a child now, and looked at him in the same manner that blinded people look upon the sun and the sky for the first time. "He won't be like the others. He's already special."

"To James Potter!" Tamazi said, raising the glass.

"To James Potter!" the happy parents answered in unison, clinking their glasses together in a toast.


	5. Chapter 5

**_July 3, 1960..._**

The homely woman was crying in earnest, wholly unable to stop even though the tears had made her eyes painfully swollen.

A male healer stood unsurely next to her bed, exchanging sharp, helpless shrugs with the nurses, trying to get them to calm the young mother down somehow. He appealed to them with soundless, mouthed phrases and wide eyes, but the girls only answered in kind.

"M...Mrs. Pettigrew..." one of them attempted, touching the woman's shoulder timidly, stopping when this made her cry even harder. She started gasping in great breaths broken by sobs; her swollen face was stained with dried tears and her matted, mousy hair stuck to her cheeks.

"Sweetie, we're begging you, calm down, you're hurting yourself. You can't worry like this now, you have-"

"You d-don't understand, W-W-William couldn't leave, he couldn't do that; you don't know him at all," she wept. "Let someone app..." - sob -"...apparate to our house, to the farm... or to the pub; he'll be in one of those places..." She looked beseechingly at people surrounding her.

Her wardmates, two young and, judging by the amounts of flowers on each of their tables, quite loved women, exchanged looks. Sympathy was evident on both faces, but a shrewd observer could pick up on the vague, "glad-that's-not-me" thoughts swimming beneath the surface of their pity. Their neighbor's features could hardly be termed beautiful: thin frizzy hair, a curved nose, small watery eyes. The only attractive attribute of her face was her full, well-shaped lips. But that one redeeming feature wasn't enough to help her hold onto her husband.

"I personally went to your home, Mrs. Pettigrew..." The healer hesitated, remembering the oppressive atmosphere of the small wooden cottage, situated near the remains of a hippogriff farm, and the cowardly note on the kitchen table under a bottle of Fire Whiskey. It wasn't a new experience for him - an old healer saw this type of note more than once in his day and age. The most difficult thing in such a situation was always trying to convince the new mother that no-one was lying to her, and that the most important thing to worry about at this point was the child...

"...I didn't find your husband there. I think he..."

"Something must have happened to him," she moaned.

The young nurse who sympathized the most threw shining eyes upon the healer; she kept stroking the new mother's frizzy hair, as if the woman were a foolish girl, even though she was twice the nurse's age.

"Oh, no, of course not. I think he went to... visit his parents."

"He has no-one beside me!" The woman who'd just gone through labour snarled, staring at him. Her buck teeth made her look like a rabbit.

"Then when he gets back, he'll tell us himself where he had to go so urgently."

Pretty lips trembled, arched, and suddenly the woman howled, making all of them jump.

The doctor couldn't bear it anymore and slapped his legs in irritation. "For God's sake, Mrs. Pettigrew, pull yourself together!" The girls exchanged looks - they'd never seen Healer Pasternak snap at a patient before. "If you keep on crying, your milk will go sour and your son will get sick or become a squib!"

She quieted immediately and hiccupped in shock, moving her light-blue eyes up to him.

"Of course you don't want that," the healer muttered, hiding his hands in the pockets of a light-yellow set of robes. "I advise you to calm down and not try to find a black cat in a dark room. Everything can still turn out alright in the end. You'll get sick, your husband will come tomorrow, and it'll turn out that all that time spent worrying yourself was pointless. Elizabeth will bring you some hot tea."

"He won't come," Mrs. Pettigrew said suddenly in a flat, wooden voice, straightening her back. Looking blankly at something in front of her, she started to unbutton her shirt and continued in a calm, steady voice: "No, he won't come."

All the nurses looked at Pasternak, and then the woman began to yell again, making them shift nervously.

"Damn him and his hippogriffs! He thinks he dumped me! Let me tell you something - it was me who threw him out! Me! We don't need him, the bloody drunkard!" She pulled her shirt down one shoulder, baring her chest shamelessly. "The thief! That rascal!"

The exasperated healer inhaled heavily before nodding meaningfully to Elizabeth; then he left the ward, gloomily but already aloof, moving on mentally to other people's problems and illnesses.

The solicitous nurses left the ward like a covey, following their leader, secretly glad they could go back to minding their own business.

"I'll stay with you, Mrs. Pettigrew," Elizabeth said when they were left alone. She tried to help her feed the baby for the first time, but the woman pushed her hand away. "I'll sit here to call Pasternak if you start feeling ill. And I'll wake you up, if your..."

"Oh, come on," the new mother said peevishly, watching her baby suck. "You know just as well as I do that won't happen..." She looked at the younger girl with the unpleasantly determined look of an abandoned, thirty-year old woman. "Elizabeth."

The girl, looking at her with kind, still-childish eyes, pursed her lips confusedly; it seemed as if she couldn't decide whether she should be smiling. She rose from the small bedside chair she'd been sitting in to get out of the uncomfortable situation.

"I'll get you some tea," she told her charge, before swiftly walking out of the ward, fixing the cover of one of the patients' beds along her way.

Mrs. Pettigrew watched the girl's fast-moving legs sullenly, then looked down.

"I would love to know who your dad dumped us for," she whispered, stroking the baby's small, round head on which a few locks were already curling. The baby smacked his mouth, dribbling some milk. "Sh-sh..." She wiped his face carefully. "Honey, don't be afraid, I won't let you down," she started crooning to lull the boy, who'd already eaten his fill and started to yawn. "You can't trust anybody... Absolutely no-one. They'll all betray you. But me... I won't ever... ever"


	6. Two mice in the high grass

Two mice in the high grass

July 31, 1970...

«_It was many and many a year ago,_

_In a kingdom by the sea,_

_That a maiden there lived whom you may know_

_By the name of Annabel Lee;_

_And this maiden she lived with no other thought_

_Than to love and be loved by me._

_I was a child and she was a child,_

_In this kingdom by the sea,_

_But we loved with a love that was more than love—_

_I and my Annabel Lee—_

_With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven_

_Coveted her and me._

_And this was the reason that, long ago,_

_In this kingdom by the sea,_

_A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling_

_My beautiful Annabel Lee;_

_So that her highborn kinsmen came_

_And bore her away from me,_

_To shut her up in a sepulchre_

_In this kingdom by the sea.._ ››

E. Poe

The wet onshore wind had broken into the hall of Malfoy's summer residence, widely opening glass doors. An old elf dropped the tray with the tea set on to the coffee table frightenedly and ran up to the curtains, which had gone berserk, to calm them down. There was barely any sense in doing this, but Edwin winced with displeasure every time they rose from behind her back, so the elf had to fight them, unminding of the senselessness.

The thunder-storm had been bulking up above San-Sebastian since the very morning, pressing down on the small city, making the air extremely humid, so the inhabitants could hardly breathe. Heavy black clouds had been roaring threateningly above the sea for more than an hour, every now and then rolling to the mountain ridge, on which Malfoy's house was standing. It seemed as if the water was breaking out this part of the continent and carrying it away in the waters.

"The weather is disgusting," Mrs. Malfoy groaned, covering her bare shoulders with a chiffon mantle. She looked gorgeous in her emerald silk dress. "What could be worse than the wind?" The woman accidentally-on-purpose touched her hair, checking if her perfectly arranged locks were still in-place. She smiled at her guests.

"The weather is just horrible," Druella Black confirmed at once, passing a cup to her daughter and pulling on the tippet, which she had dropped on to the couch a few minutes ago, since it had been quite stuffy.

The pale anemic girl with large eyes and golden locks accepted the cup from mother's hands, saying nothing, freezing with it in her hands, not knowing what to do next, not even daring to breathe under Edwin Malfoy's intense stare. The woman was, after all, her future mother-in-law.

Suddenly, cheerful laughter could be heard from the nursery quite clearly, seeing, as it was adjacent to the hall. The girl's blue eyes flashed at once, as they looked at the locked door hungrily.

Narcissa Black had come here just a few hours ago, and even though she had to spend the whole summer in this house, she was already wishing she could run away; the girl did her best not to expose the storm raging inside of herself. Her face, almost as impervious as the other three ladies', was hidden under secular courtesy, her lips neither sad nor merry, thin eyebrows emphasized her smooth clean forehead. The lust for life showing in her eyes was the one thing that Druella and Edwin hadn't completely managed to hide in the marble statue they were molding her as the future Mrs. Malfoy.

"Aren't you scared, darling?" Walburga Black stretched her arm aside lazily, and the deft elf gave her a cup immediately. Mrs. Black was wearing a long, tight, as a glove, black silk dress. Jet-black hair was so smooth and shining, that it looked like it was wet; according to the new fashion, she had arranged her hair like an intricate crown, it could be thought that it was not locks, but snakes, weaved into a tough clew. Cold, but very beautiful, steel-blue-colored eyes looked like bits of glass, glued to the face. The lust for life had disappeared from them a long time ago. "You can see the sea out of your window," she moved a long, shuddering curtain aside. "We, English, are already used to the dampness, but if I were you, I would have already died because of the dread."

Edwin smiled at her future relative.

"How is your husband's health?.."

Another attack of laughter left the nursery, and someone chuckled: "Ts-s-s!"

The house-owner's lips quivered.

"Thank you, he is quite well..."

The children's hollers were heard again, and Edwin moved her head sharply, but refrained from yelling.

She couldn't stand young children, since she believed that it was almost impossible to find creatures who could be more stupid and useless than they were, so she preferred to stay away from them, till they grew up. She made an exception just for one of them. And his sudden appearance left children's probable punishment for naught.

Just as Edwin was about to call the elf to close the door upstairs so the children wouldn't disturb them, the hall's door opened and the elf, who didn't have time to open it, bowed to the floor so that his ears were brushing the floor, when a tall and slim youth walked by him, his silvery-white hair fixed in a ponytail.

"Mother, I just got..." Lucius Malfoy stopped when he saw other women in the room, and, straightening his back, he bowed slowly, his hand touching the rich silver embroidery on his chest. As it usually happened in woman's society, the appearance of a male brought a little discord in the atmosphere. The ladies began to move, swish gowns and smile, gazing at the figure of the young man, vested in silvery-blue loose summer cloak.

Narcissa didn't show any sort of emotions, which her future husband's appearance had brought; but on the inside the storm foamed and hit the walls of the marble statue which she had been formed into so skillfully.

Her hands were shaking so badly that the cup in her hand was knocking against the saucer she was holding under it.

"Lucius!" Druella exclaimed rapturously, unnoticeably taking the cup from her daughter's hands and offering her free hand to the young man. "We are so glad to see you!"

As a dance teacher repeats his pupils' movements when they dance alone, Edwin, watching her son, inclined her head mechanically when Lucius kissed her guest's hand.

"I am glad to see you, madam," Lucius looked at Walburga, who walked away from the window and, shaking hips, gracefully fell into a free armchair, smiling at young Malfoy politely. "You are charming. As usually though, you always are."

Edwin bloomed and looked at Walburga with badly hidden triumph. Her elder son was left far behind Lucius in the art of high-society manners and communication. That boy behaved like the scum on the streets, even though poor Walburga did her best to force some morality upon him.

"Miss Black,"

Not even looking up, Narcissa reached one hand out and endured one short and dry kiss, after which she put her hand on tightly pressed together skinny knees under a turquoise gown.

"Mother..."

He squeezed her shoulders and kissed mother on cheek coldly.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Edwin said in unrecognizably soft voice. "Good morning..." She shook his hand with trepidation. Once in a while forgetting about her daughter, who was born seven years after Lucius and who needed mother much more than the growing up son, Edwin was persistently taking Lucius to every high-society event, dinner, breakfast and supper party, showing off her talented boy to every famous and influential wizard, hoping that they would think of him at the decisive moment. And how many pure-blooded, wellborn girls were bolted through the finest sieve of her attention - and only one had gotten the chance to sit on this sofa today. So she, the perfect one according to Edwin's measure, was sitting there and dying mentally, getting destroyed and turning to the ash, but outwardly staying as beautiful and cold as early April morning.

"We've heard a lot about your achievements at school, Lucius," Walburga said meaningfully, bringing relaxed fingers up to her chin, giving the young man intent, motionless look. "My congratulations. I remember Orion used to be the prefect of Slytherin as well. Your parents can be proud of you."

"Thank you, Bourgie, we _are_ indeed proud," answered Edwin, still holding her son's hands. "This is a great honor."

"I totally agree with you," Druella smiled, showing the gum. "Congratulation, Lucius!" As she said, she slightly squeezed her daughter's ice-cold hand.

Lucius darted a glance at Narcissa unwillingly, but she was too busy looking at the crease in her skirt to look at him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Black."

The official part was over.

Walburga went on talking about the last council meeting of St. Mungo's trustees and an outrageous management, which permitted the medical treatment of muggle born. Druella, peeking at Lucius for the last time, caught up with the others.

Seizing his opportunity, Lucius whispered, bowing to his mother and watching Narcissa readjust an untwisted lock of her hair, "Mother, the mail from _Norway_ was delivered."

"I am a little bit busy, Lucius," Edwin peeked shortly at her interlocutors, who were discussing the Board Trustees' business without her, and then looked back at her son with the slight irritation "Oh, what is there? I hope, they didn't decide to refuse."

"She has been accepted," Lucius uttered, barely managing to hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Wonderful," the woman answered coldly, turning away. Her nostrils flared, her face lit up with an outright joy and she brought up the cup to her lips to hide it.

"Mother..." Lucius moved closer. "Maybe it isn't too late... to change our minds?

Edwin raised her eyebrows indignantly, not even looking at her son. Corners of her lips cut deeper, eyelashes flushed just twice, as if they wanted to flush the words he had said away.

However, that was enough.

Lucius straightened up swiftly and when he spoke again, his tone had no more silk, it was cold and efficient.

"Could I tell her?"

"Why would you want to discuss it at all!" Edwin whispered angrily, looking at him again. Long heavy earrings shook from side to side. "If you must, you must, the end of the subject! That's out of the question."

"Doesn't she have the right..."

"No, and of course that's none of her business," she put a cup aside. "Tell Tobby to pack her things. I will tell her tomorrow."

"And still, mother?" Lucius smiled and put his hand on her shoulder, perfectly aware of what effect a fleeting caress did to his mother. "I really want to impart the news myself."

Edwin pursed her lips, giving him a short glance, full of jealousy.

"Well, let it be like you want, tell her, if you want so," she said finally, turning away and slightly waving her hand. "She is in the nursery. Go."

Sirius was kneeling on a small calico couch, thrusting his chin into prickly clothes and looking out of the window in the darkness, watching over a high cypress, which grew nearby the house. A lightning bolt flew past it a few times, like a stroke, but for some reason it never hit the tree itself. Sirius was sure, that if it did, the tree would begin to burn, the fire would begin and finally his stay at the boring Malfoy's house would make at least some sense. He watched rich-green, tired of the heat leaves tremble, and pictured how he would be the only one who wouldn't panic, how he would find a wand and in some magic way make a large flood - the sea would leave the shore, saturate everything around, and they would look for provisions on boats and rob the houses in the neighborhood...

The boy sighed deeply and brokenly. He was tired of sitting in the same position, but he was sure, that if he were to turn around just for one second, the lightning would strike, and it would strike right into the tree. Also the boy liked to pretend that neither the thunder nor lightning frightened him. Every time the sky above the house broke apart with a deafening crack, Sirius hemmed arrogantly, tossed his head and out of the corner of his eye, he watched a curtain shove and curious scared eyes of some kid look at him.

"Sirius Black, it's your move!" Meda said grumpily, throwing a knocked down figure at him.

They were playing chess, and Sirius was losing for the third time in a row because of his carelessness.

"Huh?.."

The boy shivered and turned away from the window. At that moment, the curtain moved away harshly, and the girl, who was sitting on a windowsill, watched Sirius disappear behind the sofa's back. It seemed she didn't reckon to cope with the storm without him.

"I just have knocked down your rook," Meda informed; after that she bent down and picked the figure up from the floor. It had already revitalized and tried to bite offender's finger, but the girl tossed it on the couch and cast her heavy chestnut braid behind her back. She looked very strong-minded, but not exactly pretty: she had plump, conspicuous red lips, upturned nose, round cheeks and small, but very smart light-brown eyes. "Make a move."

"One more, Bella! One more!"

As Sirius heard Regulus' voice, he covered his ears with his hands swiftly, but it didn't help him not to hear a mouse's squeak; it was running about the cage blindly in a fatuous attempt to escape.

"Wait a second, darling," said Bella with aspiration and drew the animal from the cage with her wand.

Regulus crawled up to a hand-made scaffold and bore his hands against knees, looking at Bellatrix Black - his beautiful, grown-up cousin, who was left with Meda to look after them. She drew the desperately withstanding animal from the cage.

"Sirius, are you playing or not?" Andromeda asked irritatedly, lifting her eyes from the board. It seemed her elder sister and little Regulus' games were getting on her nerves. She noticed that Sirius, who was looking at the animal in the girl's hands with dread, couldn't hear her; she turned around to her sister, "Bella, don't you want to stop?"

"This is no more cruelty in this, than in your chess, sister." Bella said. "Announce the verdict, Regulus," she kissed the black, shrieking mouse and pressed its small body to the board. The knife clanged. The mouse, as if it could feel the death's nearness, began to squeal and try to get out of girl's hands, even though it was pointless.

Regulus laughed; it looked like it was some kind of circus performance for him.

"The accusation: the participation in criminal relation with muggles, breaking the magical statue of secrecy..." Studied words sounded both funny and frightful from lop-eared eight years old boy's lips. "The punishment, imposed by Wizengamot's court: _execution_!"

The knife fell on the board, cutting the squeak. At first, there was a creepy, oppressive silence, and then, suddenly Regulus started to clap and laugh deafeningly.

Sirius turned. The mouse, which was lying in the puddle of black blood, looked like a toy. At first, he couldn't understand what was lying next to her, and when he realized, he felt sick.

"More, more! Let's execute the next one because it married the muggleborn!"

Andromeda shook her head, looking at the chessboard. Her eyebrows were raised high.

Sirius made a move, not even watching.

A tear fell on the black square, but the boy whipped it off with his finger immediately, sniffed improperly, and wiped his nose with the shirt's sleeve.

As Andromeda saw it, she stood up resolutely and came up to Bellatrix.

"Bella, didn't you hear me? I said - enough!" - Her voice hit the walls. The thunder roared outside the window.

Bellatrix threw her head back, looking up at younger sister's figure, which was looming above her sternly, and rose slowly.

"What's wrong, Meda?" The elder Black shook her head, making ringlets, which reminded of snakes, fall on her white shoulders and high breasts. Regulus stood up, hiding in her skirt. Bella put her sharp-clawed hand on his disheveled head. "We are playing. You are a hindrance to this. Stay out of our way."

"You scare them!" The girl exclaimed, indicating somewhere behind her back.

"Who exactly am I scaring?" Bella inclined her head, and saw Sirius, ready to help his cousin. "This child? Are there really such cowards in our family?"

Sirius flew up from the couch as if this word stung him. The picked up from the floor knife clanked.

"Sirius!" Andromeda run up to him and grabbed his shoulder. Breathing heavily, the boy peeked at her, hesitated for a second and then thrust the weapon in the floor with strength, breaking its handle after all and throwing it somewhere in the corner.

Regulus jumped on his brother, shrieking, since he had broken his favourite weapon, but Sirius simply pushed him, and the boy felt on the floor. Skinny legs in grey shorts and heavy boots flickered in the air.

Bella laughed in a low and deep laughter and bowed, her body pointing in Sirius' direction, which showed her breasts in a deep low-neck dress.

"Merlin, look at him! Not a puppy, but a wolf cub!" She painfully squeezed his face in her hands, dug her nails into his skin and pressed his lips in. Sirius jerked, hitting her hand. He didn't like to be touched. Especially by women who looked like his mother.

"I have always loved wolf cubs..." Bella sighed, straightened up, and stroked Regulus' head, who had already stood up and pressed himself to her, looking at his elderly brother with hatred. "I especially love to run through their guts." she pulled out her wand sharply and Sirius stepped back unwittingly, making the witch giggle with satisfaction.

"Bella, stop it or I will tell mother!" Meda said. Suddenly the thunder roared above the house, and everyone in the room heard a quiet scared scream, which came from the soft, decorated with pillows, covered with curtains windowsill. Bella's reaction to that sound reminded of a hound's on a rustle in bushes, and before anyone could move or say a word, she flew up to the window and grabbed the fabric of the curtain.

"So that's the scared one!" She screamed, opening the curtains jerkily. The girl squeaked and jumped off the windowsill in to the accompaniment of witch's laughter. She was very small, even smaller than Regulus, and standing next to Bella, she reminded of a tall doll. The dark-blue dress, white tights and snow-white hair- it was just like her mother's- put up in a small ponytail over the rest of her hair, only exaggerated the resemblance. Only her eyes were absolutely black and stood out on her white face, like two spots of black paint.

Few locks got out of the hairdo and created a fluffy cloud around the head.

"So, you are afraid of thunder, little Roxanne," Bellatrix said, coming closer and closer to her. "You are scared that the thunderstorm will kill you, Roxy-Doxy?"

"Bellatrix, don't!" Andromeda said severely and tried to grab sister's hand, but she jerked it away, eyes flashing. "Back off, Meda! You'll command in Slytherin, but don't interfere here!" she roared, waving the wand in front of her sister. It thundered again and the children started. The lightning lightened the sisters' faces for a second.

Bella bent down to the scared little girl and whispered companionably "Do you know why thunders strike? _Do you_?"

The child fell for the tender voice and nodded.

"They lighten the way for the Demon, who is hunting disobedient children..." Roxanne bleached with terror and automatically looked out of the window together with Bellatrix. The sky, absorbed with summer moisture, was black as never, and looked like it was indeed full of demons. "Every time the lightning strikes, somewhere dies the disobedient child." Bellatrix walked around the room and picked up the cage with mice. Roxanne watched her move with scared eyes. "Have you counted how many times the lightning struck tonight?" The girl shook her head, stepping back. Black, miserable, like chinchilla's eyes watered, reddened lips parted, but the girl didn't cry. Bellatrix shook the cage; it made mice hit the rod and squeal so loud, that Roxanne screw up her eyes, flattening herself against the wall.

"Ten!" Bellatrix growled, popping her eyes out. "And they all are here! Dying, bad-behaved children turn into mice!" She informed matter-of-factly and then added in a daunting voice, "and they all get to me. If I were you, I wouldn't turn off the lights tonight, Roxy-doxy!"

Suddenly Sirius shouted furiously and grasped the cage with animals. He had been willing to snap poor creatures out of that loony's hands for a long time.

"What are you doing?!" Bellatrix jerked the cage towards herself, but Sirius didn't let go; he rammed into her and grasped her hand this time, trying to detach her fingers from the cage.

"Let them go!"

"Oh, you, piece of rubbish!

"Let - go!"

"Sirius!"

A bright flare flashed, and a deep cut appeared on the boy's face. The blood spilt on the floor.

"Bella, what are you doing?!" Meda yelled, running up to her sister, but then the door had opened, and everyone froze, turning towards it.

"What is going on?" Lucius asked severely, coming in to the children's room and slamming the door behind him. The grey eyes paused on Bellatrix, and she childishly hid the wand behind her back. "Why is there so much noise?"

Squealing Lucius' name, the little girl raced off and, before anyone could even stop her, she flew over the room and clutched on to his Lucius caught her, but put the girl back on her feet in the second.

"Roxanne, watch how you behave..." He muttered sub-audibly, readjusting her dress.

The second she was back on her feet, Roxanne held on him, burying her face in his robes. "What happened to you?" Lucius asked worriedly. The girl didn't reply, she just stared at Bellatrix with her huge black eyes.

"What have you done, Bella?" The youth asked in an absolutely different voice. The grey eyes shone like two pieces of ice. The witch unclasped her hands defiantly and threw the cage on the floor; the mice squeaked from the pain. "You were told to transfigurate them into something to entertain the children!" Roxanne looked out of the robes' pleats. Her face was cold, but her eyes were burning with inhuman fear. It seemed, Bellatrix' spooky fairy tales had turned into something regular "How many times did I ask you not to frighten her?"

"You have to work over your sister!" As Bella came up to him, Roxanne hid immediately as she approached. "Is it my fault that she is afraid of everything?"

Regulus, as pale as death, rubbed his hand, which didn't hurt anymore, and looked around, seemingly unsure of what to do.

Andromeda squatted next to a heavily-breathing Sirius, cleaning blood of his face. The boy looked at Bellatrix' back, tightened in purple silk, with hatred, and dreamt of a wand...

Malfoy hemmed, peeking at his future sister-in-law.

"If I were her, I would be scared, too. Spending five minutes with you in one room is already an ordeal not for the faint-hearted, Bella"

"The girl can't be such a coward!" Bellatrix looked in his eyes, her voice spilling like honey. "If all Malfoys are cowards like that, should they deserve any attention, Lucius?" She paused. "Anyone's attention?"

His eyes darkened.

"She is scared of thunder and lightning, what kind of wizard will she become?" Bella went on, feeding on his anger. "How will it affect the Malfoys, when people find out that their daughter is afraid of her own shadow?"

The girl, who was huddled up to her brother all that time, suddenly pulled his cloak and screamed, "I am afraid of nothing, do you get this, snake?!"

Bella laughed.

"Roxanne!" Lucius was filled with indignation. Derisively the thunder roared above the house and she burst into tears. Bella snorted.

"I'm not afraid, I'm not, I'm not!" Little Roxanne cried out, pushed Lucius and before anyone could say a word, she ran outside.

"Roxanne!" Lucius hollered, but his voice only hit the closed door. He stepped forward.

"Will you come after her?" Bella asked, and Lucius stopped, looking back.

Grabbing the opportunity, Sirius suddenly picked up the cage with mice from the floor, saving them from the inevitable death and run after the girl, glancing at Bella.

"Hey, stop!"

"Sirius!"

The door slammed for the second time.

"We have to tell parents!" Meda ran up to the door, giving her sister an angry look. "There is a precipice!"

"Yes, Lucius," Bellatrix said, when her sister went out of the room. Lucius didn't react at all, watching little figure in a dress off.

"You can't indulge all those stupid weaknesses. Cravens aren't supposed to be among those who were picked by The Lord and you are aware of it," she pronounced her mentor's name with admiration. Lucius sighed slowly and after an agonizing hesitation, he stepped away from the glass door, rubbing his lips. Bella, who was watching his every move, smiled quite joylessly and said in her usual voice, "I'm glad you understand it."


	7. Chapter 7

The fugitive was found in the depth of the park. The girl was sitting in between huge roots that belonged to a high branchy tree, and cried, hugging her dirty knees. It looked like she fell a few times before she made it to the tree.

As she heard Sirius, the girl raised her head, sobbing and sniffing, her nose red.

For some time they were looking at each other in silence, but then girl's lips trembled, she lowered her head onto her knees and started weeping again.

Sirius sat beside her in silence, putting the cage on the grass, reached out one hand and hugged the girl. Roxanne let out a sob and, still not saying a word trustingly nestled up to him, shaking from crying. White hair touched his cheek.

"I feel so sorry for them..." She whispered, weeping bitter tears. "So sorry!"

Sirius frowned, feeling that he was about to weep, but he would rather punch himself than cry in front of the girl.

"Me, too" he said gloomily and pursed his lips.

"They are so small," Roxanne went on. "They did nothing wrong..."

"I wish I had a wand," Sirius said through his teeth, watching mice run inside the cage, not understanding why there was grass in their dark and gloomy world of cupboards and hallways. "Then I would make those mice as big as dragons, so they could gorge themselves on Bella."

He stole a glance at her reaction.

Roxanne raised her head and realized that she was sitting, with the unknown boy's arms around her. She wiped her nose and face and hugged her knees again.

"So, you're Roxanne?" She looked at him for a second and turned away. Maybe, it meant «yes».

Sirius brought his leg up to his chest and put the hand on it.

"What kind of name even is it - _Roxanne_?" he asked, looking at her.

"There is nothing wrong with my name," she uttered in a low voice, turning to the boy slowly and giving him a killing glare.

"No, really, look at you!" Sirius couldn't stop. "Why is your hair white? Are you so old?"

"Ugh, what a fool you are!" she turned her back to him. Her dress rode up and she pulled it down angrily.

"Oho-ho! Miss Arrogant?" Sirius reached out his hand. "My name is Sirius. Sirius Orion Black."

He had started puberty already, meaning his voice was breaking already, which made his name sound very solid.

Roxanne looked at a reached out dirty palm. Her hands weren't clean either; they were covered in sticky soil. Her mother always scolded her, when she was playing in the garden or on the shore, and slapped on her wrists. She would do the same now, probably...

She squeezed his soft warm fingers gingerly, but as Sirius get hold of her hand, he shook it in a boyish way. He was glad Walburga wasn't here, otherwise he must have kissed it. Sirius hated to kiss girls' hands, he was sure it's stupid.

"Nice to meet you, Roxanne," he said in a grand manner. "Don't mind Bella. She's insane. When she was small, she was locked in the room with dead elves all the time. She treated Meda and Cissa badly."

"Really? In the room with elves?" Roxanne whispered, screwing her face.

"Yes," Sirius confirmed with an air of importance.

The children kept silent, imagining how it would feel to sleep in one room with elves' heads. For normal wizards' offspring the room with dead elves could seem to be very creepy and terrible. They, on the other hand, were used to the fact that there were such doors that you would be afraid to walk by, not even to look inside...

"Why did you bring them?" Roxanne asked finally, looking at mice in the grass. Sirius remembered of the cage and pulled it closer to him.

"I wanna release them. Let them live in your forest," he busied himself with the lock.

"Release? Can we?"

"Of course," Sirius, who was about to open the door, hesitated for a moment and asked reluctantly, "If you want, you can do it."

Roxanne gave him a small smile and opened the small lattice door.

Sirius suppressed the sigh.

He was willing to open the tiny careful lock and watch the animals go out of the cage with caution, become free, but... She is a girl.

Moreover, a blubbered one.

He picked up the most noticeable, snow-white mouse and brought it to his very nose.

"Hey, it looks just like you. As small as you. And white." Sirius almost freaked out when he realized it was so. "I must say, she is quite nice," in a bout of gallantry he almost poked the animal into her nose, but the girl recoiled.

"Are you scared of them?" He asked in surprise. The mouse strived to run away, and he could barely hold it in his hands, catching the warm body with both of his hands.

"No!" The girl pressed her back to the tree. "I am not!" She hesitated for a moment. "Is it true that they get to people's beds at night and bite their noses and ears off?"

"What?!" Sirius protested. "Are you mad? The mice are kind wizards, who were locked in the Underworld by moles hundreds of years ago!"

The girl raised her eyebrow, looking at him as if he was insane.

"Yes, and since then they live in the Underworld and fight the moles and snakes." He said seriously. "They have been fighting since moles had stolen the youngest daughter of Penelope Hufflepuff. The students of Hogwarts found it out and decided to help her. They all became animaguses, turned into mice and went to the Underworld to save Cornelia Hufflepuff from the evilest mole of all."

Roxanne smiled. Sirius peeked at her quickly and then went on, "So, when the students finally got to Cornelia, the winter had come and they almost froze underground. They were living underground, digging burrows, and almost died from hunger. When they found Cornelia, they could turn back to people and were happy to go home. However, the moles were sly, they pretended to let the prisoner go and gave her magic seeds and corn from their huge supply, which Cornelia passed to the Hogwarts' kitchen. The students turned into badgers and this time for good. Cornelia found that out and made a decision to stay underground with everyone, who sacrificed everything to her. She turned into a badger as well, gathered together every underworld citizen and together they deposed the moles. But, despite the win, it was a huge loss for the Hogwarts. Since then there is a badger on Hufflepuff's arms."

The mice scattered. Roxanne, who had heard the story out, was opening and closing the door of now empty cage.

Sirius gave a twitch at snow-white strand of hair; frankly speaking, he wanted to touch her hair for a long time to find out what it is like to the touch. Roxanne glanced at him.

"Will you be scared of mice now, little Rox?"

She raised her big black, as chinchilla's, eyes.

"I think I won't..."

"Bella is wicked. And, as every wicked wizard, she is afraid of the truth. That's the reason she lies. Never trust her."

She didn't reply. Sirius couldn't help pulling her soft lock once again.

"Hey, little Rox!"

She looked at him frowning, grooming her hair.

"What?"

"Let's run away!"

"Your mom is Aunt Druella?"

They were wandering in the forest.

The middle of the summer rustled around them with deep rich greenery, and two pale children in dark clothes looked like china dolls lost in the grass.

At the very beginning of their journey Sirius took Roxanne's hand and, to his surprise, she didn't mind.

Even more, she intertwined their fingers into a firm lock.

And her palm was dry and warm, which made it twice better.

"My mother is Walburga," Sirius answered unwillingly.

"Does she love you?"

Sirius hesitated. Even though the question was easy, he could not find the answer.

"Well... sometimes I think that she does," he answered after a moment's consideration.

Roxanne turned away, staring ahead and biting her lips.

Sirius was silent too, glancing at her surreptitiously.

"What about yours?" He asked finally.

Roxanne looked in his eyes and shook her head, pursing her lips.

"Does she punish you?" Sirius asked quietly.

"All the time," she answered sadly. "Every evening elves tell mom what I have done and if she doesn't like something, she punishes me."

"All the moms are the same," the boy noticed.

"Meda is never punished," Roxanne said in a sad voice and shrugged.

"But Aunt Dru is very kind, she loves everyone," Sirius swung their intertwined hands back and forth. "I told her once that I wanted a snitch. She gave me a dog for my birthday and said that his name is Snitch."

"You have a dog?!" The girl exclaimed in a delighted voice.

"No," Sirius snapped out. Roxanne felt his fingers squeeze and decided not to ask.

"If you are Black, then we are relatives and you are my brother," Roxanne said firmly and then asked swiftly, "You are my brother, aren't you?"

"No, but I might become."

"What do you mean?" The girl frowned.

"When your brother marries my cousin..." Suddenly she stopped and Sirius stopped as well. "Didn't you know?"

Roxanne pulled her hand out of his palm, looking at him with her black eyes. Everything became darker. Humid air turned thicker. Just for a moment, everything froze, listening carefully to the mysterious sky's roar, and in one second the huge purple mass above the town cracked and a wall of warm noisy summer downpour began.

The children stopped under the oak, which was so big, that a house could be hidden under it, and just a few drops got to them.

"You are wrong." Roxanne said firmly. "Lucius will never get married." She shook her head, her lips' corners twitching both in scared and mocking way. "No."

"Not now, of course, he is too small," «grown-up» Sirius said, putting his hands in pockets. It was his favourite habit and his mother often slapped his wrists for it. "In a few years. Why do you think they bring our Narcissa?"

It made everything inside the poor girl turn over.

"Nar... Narcissa? _This_ Narcissa?"

"Yeah, do you know any other Narcissa?" Sirius smirked. Roxanne suddenly pushed him.

"Hey, what's up?" Sirius asked, stepping back and suppressed the instinctive wish to push her back.

"Lucius won't marry her, do you get it?!" She even stamped her foot. "Never, do you understand me?!"

Sirius was totally taken aback.

"What's wrong with you?" He tried to take her hand, but Roxanne pushed him again and bore her elbows against the tree, crying for the second time in a day. "What did I say?" Sirius protested, coming around and trying to look at her face, but she was turning away every time.

"For how long are you going to cry? What is even wrong?"

"Lucius won't get married, he won't!" Roxanne repeated pathetically, smearing the tears on her face. The burning soreness rose inside of her, and tears only cultivated her so much that she was couldn't stop. She felt horribly screwed. The closest person, the only one, who cares about her, the one she trusts, decided to leave her, go away and live separated from her! And he didn't even say anything!

"Everyone gets married!" Sirius made a helpless gesture, trying so hard to look in her eyes. "You can't do anything about it!"

"No!" The girl snapped on him evilly. "I will never get married!"

"Me, too," Sirius murmured in reply, scratching his head. "Although my mother will make me. Hey, stop crying!" He wasn't sure what to do, so he bumped her shoulder a little. "He will love you more anyway!"

Roxanne stopped wheeling and was just sobbing for some time, baring her head against the tree; after that she looked at Sirius, pressing her fingers to wet lips.

"Will he?" She asked in such voice, as if her life depended on Sirius' reply.

Sirius nodded.

When they got to the precipice, the rain had stopped. The dark clouds spread over the peach, creamy-rose sky, becoming harmless melting clouds. The sky and the sea flowed in a white haze and it seemed they exchanged their places.

At the very precipice, the children found a fallen because of the lightening tree; the treetop was hanging in air, and the rest of the plant, which was growing for much more than ten years there, was lying on the ground. A huge trunk pressed little trees on its way down to the ground. The precipice had a low grade and it seemed that the tree would roll down at any moment.

Sirius sat on the place where the tree had broken and squinted happily, letting the salty sea wind blow on his face.

Roxanne climbed on the silver stem as well. The sun, which looked like a small ignescent ruby, was slowly coming out of clouds.

Seeing this beauty, Roxanne was thinking about thousands of things at once, but all her thoughts came back to the one, that if she hadn't run away, she could have get into warm bed after delicious rye pancakes with strawberry jam and wait for Lucius to come and chat with her or read, sitting at her table. The moment she thought about it, her heart died within her - soon enough he will stop coming to her and will read with his wife instead.

«_If I fall from the precipice, they all will feel ashamed... I will be lying dead and Lucius will cry_...»

The trunk hummed beneath her - Sirius leapt off his nest and sat beside her.

"You know what?"

"What?" She asked, swinging her feet in air.

"I got letter from Hogwarts."

Roxanne looked at his shining face and tried to imagine how it would feel to get a letter from the school where Lucius was studying...

"Only thirty days and I will leave," he smacked the tree. "Roll on! I can't wait. But... Probably I will go to Slytherin. Everyone from my family was studying in Slytherin."

Roxanne remembered all those years of Lucius studying far away from home, when she craved to be next to him, in this _Slytherin_. Mother would be proud of her... probably.

"But the thing is, I don't want to go to these freaks. It'd be cool to get to Gryffindor, all the cool wizards were here. Did you get your letter?"

The girl shook her head, still swinging her feet in the air.

"How so?" Sirius wondered. "How old are you?"

"Mother says it is impolite to ask women about such things," she noticed arrogantly, but then immediately added, "Ten."

"Then we'll go together, "Sirius smiled, but Roxanne turned away from him, and the boy's smile dissapeared.

"What's wrong?"

"Lucius says that Hogwarts is a bad school," she grumbled. "He says, they let one and all go there."

"Is it a bad thing?" Sirius asked gloomily.

After a small pause, Roxanne shrugged and turned back to him. The wind had tumbled her white, like snow, hair and threw it on her face, so only her eyes were visible.

"I don't know."

"Where will you study then, if not in Hogwarts?"

"Mother says there is a good school in Norway."

"But it's so far away! It's..." Sirius was bad at geography. "At the other end of the world."

"Is it?" The girl became sad. "Hopefully, they won't accept me."

They fell silent. The sun, touching the water, slopped the melted gold on the sea. The sky cleaned up and plunged into the water, becoming as spacious as the sea underneath it. The aroma of grass, wild flowers and sea greeted them. Maybe, this is how the world looked like when there were no people. The sky, the water and the palpitation of grass, which will turn into trees someday and fall, defeated by lightning.

Sirius felt the girl's head resting on his shoulder.

"Will you write to me?" She asked, looking at seagulls, which were whirling up to the horizon. As the girl found boy's hand, she squeezed it in already usual lock. Sirius felt an odd flutter. At the same time, he wanted to withdraw his hand... and hold it like this forever.

"Will you, Sirius?"

For the first time she said his name out-loud.

Sirius turned his head and accidentally touched her forehead with his nose. Her skin was delicate and mat. One tiny tint mole on her cheek. Snow-white tumbled hair reminded of kinks of cream.

The boy felt how his heart suddenly became heavier and rushed somewhere, making him lose his breath.

Suddenly for himself he leaned forward, closed his eyes and kissed girl's red, like wild strawberry, lips. Everything inside of him flinched, painfully and lusciously, shriveled, leapt...

He froze for a moment, feeling warmth in a couple of millimeters from his face, and kissed her again, slightly pressing her lower lip. He had never done anything like this, hence he wasn't sure he was doing it right, but it feltvery_ good_...

His head reeled, as if he fell into the sea...

Sirius drew back, looking at the girl curiously and willing to know what she had felt.

Roxanne's eyelashes trembled, she opened her odd, sleepy eyes and absently touched her lips, peeking at Sirius.

It seemed she wasn't going to cry or run away, though.

Sirius felt a pull inside of him wanting to kiss her again, so he closed his eyes, trustingly drawing closer to Roxanne, and went pitapat, when she kissed him back.

... They were found, when the sun had set and it was cold and damp.

Roxanne was found by Lucius, Sirius - by his mother.

They led them home separately, not letting to say a word to each other.

The next morning Roxanne went to Durmstrang, and he, plunging into pre-school vanity, couldn't remember her name and, as time went on, he forgot what she looked like and soon after he was telling, that he kissed for the first time, sitting above an abyss...

*Pierre Van Dormael – Nemo&Anna


	8. Importance of not being Black

How important not to be Black

... July 31, 1976...

Sirius

Loud music bloated the house from the inside, pushing out beautiful mosaic windows, hitting the roof. It didn't even sound like music. It seemed that the house was shrieking, howling in pain.

Sirius waved his wand sharply and the upright with house elves' heads smashed up. One more wave and the painting of a distinguished ancestor turned into a charred spot on the wall.

"One more blot on your reputation, mother!" Sirius yelled and raised a bottle of expensive whiskey high. Most of it poured into his mouth, and the rest got onto the shirt and under the collar. Disgusting. Not finishing drinking, he threw the bottle in his mother's bedroom door and shards of thick glass scattered in the corridor.

"Cheers to you!" he grumbled, interfering with the music, inhaled his cigarette deeply and stewed it on the closest portrait. The man pictured there yelled and ran away. "To hell with you!" Black cried in pursuit.

No earlier than this morning, looking for money in his mother's table, he found a letter, on which was written «To Sirius Orion Black». The unsealed envelope was lying in the pile of old family trash. The paper was covered with blots, some little notes for the future, it was stamped with stain circles from a coffee cup. Without hesitation, he opened the envelope. As he read the first paragraph, he found out that his beloved uncle Alfard had deceased at the begging of spring from Venomous Tentacula's spike. Sirius had no time to digest what he had read when he saw that his uncle left him the first Black mansion, the bank account with a six-digit number and a small winery. In his letter, Alfard (the familiar handwriting made Sirius's chest burn) expressed his hope that Walburga Black, who had decided long ago that her younger son will inherit everything she had after her death, would not refuse her childless lonely brother in his last wish to secure his favourite nephew...

After reading his uncle's letter, Sirius started packing his stuff to move in the new house. Looking for Kreacher, who didn't respond to his call, he went down in the living room and saw that instead of uncle Alfard's name there was an ugly charred spot on the ancient linen...

And when Sirius found the second spot, looking exactly like the one next to it, he thought that he was seeing double from the shock: Andromeda's name, who married a muggle-born wizard Ted Tonks and gave a birth to a daughter from him, disappeared from mother's Gobelin as well.

At first he urged to strip the family relic off the wall and tear it in a million tiny pieces. But then Sirius realised that it wouldn't relieve his pain, and so he decided to destroy the whole house - from the roof to the ground.

Sirius danced down the stairs and bumped into the wall. He was too lazy to go on.

Jumping over the second floor fencing, he landed on the floor with the din; then he raised both of his hands and passionately played a solo on an invisible guitar. Grabbing his wand, he turned around dashingly and his hand thrust forward. The spell flew through the hall and the living room and, with a rustle, tore up a beautiful carved door from the wooden bar nearby the fireplace. Smooth sides of bottles hidden in the bar glimmered. Sirius threw up his fist in triumphant way, jumped up and danced his way to the living room. The crystal candelabrum watched him suspiciously with its every bead and shivered cowardly, when the loud music collapsed from above.

The youth stretched out his hands widely and greeted the new song with the stream of happy cursing. The drunken spell, breaking loose from the wand by accident, turned out so powerful that windows in the living room burst, letting demons in Sirius' house free.

Grabbing any old bottle, Sirius banged its neck, brought the dangerously broken glass to his mouth and, swallowing the wine, came close to the Gobelin. Black spots stung him as if Walburga scorched them not on the cloth, but right on his heart.

Taking the last big gulp, which had dried up the painful burning a bit, he thrust his forehead against the prickly stinking cloth and closed his eyes tightly. This Gobelin - his very first memory. The dim, fuzzy and unbelievably distant one.

_«He is about three years old. This Gobelin is his first memory. His mother holds his hand, she smells really good, and she's very warm. She raises her free hand and points to the picture of a dark-haired boy. "It's you, Sirius," she says and he trustingly puts a small palm on the cloth next to her palm...»_

Sirius touched the Gobelin in this place, but jerked his hand away at once, as if it burned him, stepped back and rammed into the bar. Bottles rang pitifully.

Sirius turned to the sound, jerkily took a heavy, dusty bottle and, looking at the Gobelin, declaimed, "The collection «Sibilla Wein»,1891!" Suddenly he skipped forward, and with great force flung the bottle to the wall. It was smashed into smithereens; dark, almost black wine spattered on the Cambridge blue silken sofa, which Kreacher was scared to touch with his feather duster, and the glass scattered around and above.

"«Grizelda», year 1910!" Sirius threw the next bottle in the air and exploded it with a spell.

Like a small firework of glass and wine.

Sirius smiled, staggered drunkenly and gripped the bar's lid so he didn't fall.

Black's wine collection was becoming poorer and poorer with every bottle.

Pretty soon all the furniture was covered with streaks of very rare wine, which had survived one wizard war. The sunset was pouring in the windows, and spalls shone in thick honey beams. Breaking one more bottle groggily on a table with a lamp and flowers, Sirius felt like as if long venomous thorns were pulling out of him.

"Fucking «Antipatra», 1470! Father had brought from Athens… on your birthday, old Alfard!" He cut off a bottle cap together with its neck, rose high above the bottle, from which rare wine gushed, and put his mouth under the flow; after that he slammed the bottle to the floor with great strength. Kreacher's snout appeared in the doorway but at once disappeared.

Wiping his lips and roaring something inarticulate, Sirius started to sing along to his favourite band at the top of his voice, jumping up chaotically, whirling and breaking something with his every hand's wave. Black's blood, set on fire with anger and alcohol, rushed to his head.

Sirius pulled down heavy dusty curtains together with their rod. Then he tore them with his bare hands and generously poured collection whiskey on the pieces. Waving his wand, he made plump comfy sofas explode, spewing out old smelly stuffing, he slashed the walls with magic blade, with a rustle he stripped off grey wooden panels, rags of silken dark blue upholstery, under which he found concrete and spiders. He was tearing, crashing, breaking china and glass, the music was roaring, the house was yelling, and his blood was going wild, demanding to rant and rave, break, destroy!

Making a cupboard, full of old family rubbish from silver and crystal, fall, he jumped on it and raised his wand, aiming to the old Gobelin.

"Finite."

The music stopped.

Sirius lowered his wand slowly, smirked and finally turned his head, losing his breath from choking on revengeful satisfaction.

Walburga, dressed in fully fastened silken purple cloak and small hat, was standing in a doorway, her hands in leather gloves on her stomach, she watched her son carefully. Her eyes were glassy, like water drops. Thin, cigarette paper-like skin was covering bulging cheekbones, first wrinkles appeared around eyes and mouth. Meeting her elder son's gaze, she narrowed her eyes. Long lips, painted in deep red lipstick, contracted in a thin line.

Sirius jumped up from the chair and staggered drunkenly, treading upon wine bottle shreds. The floor swayed beneath him, like a ship's deck. Maybe he did drink too much…

"Good afternoon…" he said, smiling impudently and looking straight into his mother's eyes, he picked up the medieval Gobelin and with his bare hands he tore it in two parts, then he threw it to his feet. "… Mother," he hiccupped.

Regulus ran in the room, panting.

"Mother, Kreacher didn't lie, the whole library…" The boy froze, staring at his dead-drunk brother and the mess made by him, "...is destroyed... What did..."

Sirius saluted him, as if he was saying ": «You are welcome», and smirked wryly.

Walburga didn't react to the news and was plainly standing there, like an ice statue, looking somewhere through Sirius, like as something had been written on the wall behind him, something much more interesting than Sirius himself.

"Sirius… what… what the hell are you doing?!" Recollecting himself, Regulus ran towards him angrily, but Sirius slightly twisted his hand behind his back and pushed him forward, so that Regulus took a few clumsy steps and fell on the lying armchair.

Walburga raised her head, blinking a veil away from her eyes. Sirius could see anger grow inside of her black soul, and enjoyed it, feeding on her fury and boiling in response.

"Come here," she commanded suddenly.

Sirius planted his feet wider, trying to stay still on the deck.

Regulus came closer to Mother, rubbing his shoulder, and accidentally-on-purpose stepped behind her, hiding behind her back.

Turning away pointedly as the deck swung to the right, Sirius took the last trophy from the bar, opened and turned over the bottle, pouring the wine on the torn-open couch's upholstery.

"Did you say something?" he asked, feeling more sober now. "How are you, mom? Don't you wanna tell how the wedding went?"

"Come. To me. Now." Walburga said insinuatingly. Taking her gloves off, she slapped them to Regulus' chest and he caught them obediently.

Sirius threw the bottle aside and it shattered, this time louder and clearer than all the previous.

"You don't want to tell me. Then let's talk about something different. When was Uncle Alfard buried?" Sirius' hands drifted into pockets and he began to walk around the room. His gaze wandered the walls lazily. They looked like as if a huge cat had sharpened its claws on them. Cool. "Didn't you tell me, because you knew how much I loved him? Out of pity?" He stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Why not, mom?"

"That's the only reason for you deciding to destroy our house?" Regulus was filled with indignation.

"Shut up, Reg!" Sirius snapped at him.

"Out of pity," Walburga answered finally.

"Did you burn out Andromeda out of pity too?!" Sirius cried out and jerked his hand in the Gobelin's direction so hard that he almost dislocated his shoulder. "Or because she married for love and not status like you?!"

Walburga blinked, as if he had thrown sand in her eyes.

"How dare you, you son of a bitch?" she whispered, her lips twitching in an unattractive way.

"If I am a son of a bitch..." Sirius smirked and turned his head, looking at the woman in a dour way. "Then let me ask, who are you, madam?" And he bowed low.

"You bloody rotter!" Walburga whipped up her wand, but Sirius was defter and raised his wand first.

Walburga laughed in an unpleasant way. The laughter was born somewhere deep in her covered in fabric-covered chest and was escaping it in nervous evil pieces.

"What're you going to do, boy?" she asked, lowering her wand. She smiled, slowly showing her teeth - it seemed she wanted to plunge them into his arm. "What?"

"Tell me, would you do the same to me?" Sirius asked quietly, feeling the tears coming on his eyes from ager. "Or would you just kill me?"

_«This dog is mine, mine! - I don't need dirt in the house! - Mom, please, please, I will do anything you want, just don't! - Avada Kedavra!»_

"Uncle Alfard was like a dad to me! He was the only one who loved me in this bloody family!"

_«I like Gryffindor! I have friends there! - steps, up, up. The knock of heels from behind his back. Need to hide now. Need to finish talking as well. - They love me there! I won't leave Hogwarts! If you take me away, I... I will kill myself- The door. Mother's furious face. - How dare you threaten me, shameless rotter?! - a slap in the face. - I hate you all! - silence. -You hate?... CRUCIO!»_

"Now everything is fair. You had broken my life, I broke yours. We are even," he turned away, intending to leave.

"Stay where you are, reprobate!" Walburga shouted suddenly and Sirius stopped, running into these words like onto a knife.

_«What? Reprobate?»_

He turned, hoping it wasn't said to him.

_«Me, mother?»_

"I order you to come here!" Walburga said with a trembling voice, pointing at a place on the floor near her feet with her wand.

Sirius felt how everything inside of him rose, meaning to step forward, but he only squeezed his wand stronger and grew into the floor. A lump rose in his throat.

"Come here!"

He didn't move.

Regulus watched him with dread, seizing the doorjamb with his small child hands. Some noise was heard from the corridor; Kreacher showed up in the archway.

The woman's glassy cold eyes were filled with tears, but Sirius didn't even hope she was crying because of him.

"I am your mother, ungrateful son of a bitch! I am your mother! Apologise to me immediately!"

"You call yourself my mother?" Sirius asked almost inaudibly. Her expression changed at once. Regulus, sighing, stepped back. "Isn't that title too big for letting me live here?"

Walburga flicked her wand suddenly. Sirius reacted to the whiz at once, usually there was pain afterwards, and blocked the curse.

They sank into silence.

Sirius felt how a thin thread, which had been his connection with this place and this woman, was tearing apart.

Looking in her eye with both disappointment and disgust, Sirius lowered his wand, made a step backwards, then one more, then he simply turned away and left swiftly.

Walburga grabbed a vase, which had stayed untouched for some reason, and threw it after him, but missed, and vase shattered, crashing into wall.

Sirius run off the porch and rushed to the back yard headlong, the shriek was chasing him, "YOU ARE NOT MY SON ANYMORE!"

He slammed the wicket so hard, that it closed, almost broke loose and opened again. Unable to breathe because of how furious he was, Sirius didn't know what he was doing. He had no clothes, no money, he had only time to grab the jacket from the chair in the kitchen. He didn't know what he would do next, but he was sure that he would no longer stay at this house.

Striding to the empty road, he suddenly pulled off James' invisibility cloak off the motorbike. An absolutely non-magic, but right interweaving of chromium details flashed brightly in beams of flared up sunset.

Crumpling the cloak, Sirius looked at windows defiantly.

On the second floor he saw a short figure.

"Hopefully, mother, I will break my crown!" he yelled and took his iron horse, loosing its pillion kickstand. "For once I will make your dreams come true!" He saddled up the motorbike and jerkily turned the crank. The engine roared, tearing the amazing melting summer day's silence into million pieces. The figure on second floor moved and then disappeared from the field of vision.

Tears had pressed his throat, but Sirius would rather rip his hand or leg off than let himself cry, so, wasting no time, he shoved off and set off for the only person he had left.

For James Potter.


End file.
